Consciousness shifted, a darker edge moved over Blacks mind, from elf to Necron.
His mind reached out, connecting via the datalink to the place known as the Matrix, his neural cortex acting as CPU, SPU and datachips.
His requirement for a hardware deck, gone some 2 years ago.

<<<Welcome to Oakland CFS RTG Telecommunications Grid>>>

Oaklands grid resembled a combination of archaic buildings of gigantic proportions and immense oak trees, the paving slabs of the first square rippled under electronic seismic force of his landing. The atmosphere around him had the consistency of a liquid or gel, ripple like bubbles opened around his head feeding him infomercials and pay for use subscriptions.

Ignoring them Necron turned, looking for his data quarry, identifying a potential trail the war-machine thundered across the cities LTGs.

Necron ignored the constant commercial bombardments as he followed the trail across the virtual city.
Despite concentrating on his objective Necron was still aware of Black and his goals.
As he moved from node to node the dark icon knocked up a quick database of information for Angel and Drake...

'Op-Centre'. Upon reflection Necron/Black thought the title a little cheesy, but it was hard to shake the phraseology that had been ingrained into him by Transys.
Op-Centre was a sub-basement in an old warehouse on the corner of 6th and Embarcadero East, just on the southern side of the Nimitz Freeway.

Not long after finding themselves rooted in Oakland, Silk and Black had acquired the dilapidated half of the warehouse that had once been a local Fed-Ex distribution centre.
It was ideal, or more precisely, the secure sub-basement was. The building had power, illegally rooted from neighbouring properties, and the sub-basement's armoured door was ultra secure.
Not that many people ventured down there anyway. Although this was gang territory which tended to discourage non-locals, even the gang members preferred not to enter. It was something to do with the VITAS III warning notices plastered on the outside of the property.
The truth was the building was healthy, Silk had had the place checked out. Safe of course was a different word. Structurally the building was in need of some TLC but that just went to enhance the local's lack of desire to trespass.

On the 'system' the building was owned by a small courier firm that on paper had all but gone bust. The fact that the company never did a minute of trading was besides the point.

Black and Silk had spent the last two years making sure the place remained anonymous and building up a rapport with the local gangers, helping them out with a few things that were beyond their capabilities.

Black got the impression that Silk was building himself an army and had wondered if this was his way of alleviating any guilt he felt about having to abandon the Signs gang in Chicago, what was it now, two, three years ago?
For Black it was almost second nature. This sort of thing was what he had been created and trained for. Infiltrating an area, building up a network of contacts and safe houses. It was like working for Transys Neuronet again. Only this time he got to choose the place, the people, the jobs. This was better.

Ten metres below the ground, Caliburn Black lay on one of the bunk beds he and silk had liberated from the Naval Base on Alameda.
Angel and Drake were dining on some of the ration packs from the larder out in the main room prior to retiring for the evening.

From a small data-socket on the wall at the head of Black's bunk a micro-fine cable led to the induction datajack on the side of the elf's head.
Mentally engaging with the matrix, Necron surged forth through the local system.

In the main room the bank of monitors flickered on causing Angel a moment of concern until the image of Necron appeared on the brightening screens.

"Mr Angel, Mr Drake" The virtual creature greeted the two men sat at the small table.
"I am going in search of the footage from the camera overlooking Site 3. All of the information we have gleaned so far is on this computer."

See the Forum Database!!

"Enter your name to gain access. Feel free to add anything I have missed." The Necron's guttural tones vibrated off the thick stone walls. "I hope not to encounter any resistance, however, I can never be sure. If there is anything you require of me whilst I am here, type it on the silver keyboard."
With that all but one of the monitors went blank. The remaining image showed the Necron standing in the Virtual representation of Englewood.

Throughout the archaic buildings threads of violet light flickered across the virtua streets, akin to old style telephone wires that used to run between buildings.
Standing upon a square amongst the Net IDs of various smaller corps, Necron analysed each thread with predatory interest.
'There you are'
As soon as he stepped into the square a series of multilayered transparent screens morphed into existance, creating a barrier between a snooper and the corp IO Gateways.

The flash or transmission of ID, real or false and the Firewalls dropped away, accessing the sub-layers of this grid, Necron opend an IO tube, a gateway of light within the middle of the square.
Stepping through he rocketed along the tunnel, until he arrived at the CCTV Node.

The dark robotic form stood upon the edge of a broken landscape.
Great steel skeletons lay across frayed pixelated terrain, green balefire hissed from his eye sockets as he seemed to take some grim pleasure in the entropy of a section of wildnet before him.
Areas of early Matrix that had suffered from real world economic collasp or decay.

Spinning he fired a stream of green energy roaring from his staff, his gunmetal deathshead illuminated to be if possible even more menacing.
It just floated there, goading him, a remnant of a former life.
Necro had no patience for such religated notions or genetic inheritances, the viral code of his 'Slaughter' Program, washing around the object as it weren't there.

Grumbling Necron growled and pondered as to whether there was such a thing as a Matrix Exorcist.

The landscape was expertly sculpted a great Neolithic causeway extending between pure emerald green hills rising from a Saxon ocean.
He stood beside his great iron black skeletal alter-ego, this was no magical quest images came to him via a trideo format, a rolling series of images showing him images of Scottish clansmen meeting in ancient battle, of the ever annoying sword floating within a stone chamber, of giant ogrish creatures shrouded in mist and fog, of a woman with flaming red hair and a deep south accent, of stirrings within the oceans of Britannia.

â€œIâ€™m not Carnun or Cardinalâ€ he said to the Druid like man upon his right
The man dressed in a tartan tunic, overlaid with a black cloak and broach depicting Danu, his blonde beard plaited, Celtic tattoos adorning his face.
â€œAre you telling me or yourselfâ€ he replied in a thick scots accent
Necron growled, in annoyance
â€œThis place looks more like Ireland than Caledonia, the sculpture didnâ€™t do his homeworkâ€ he retorted churlishly
â€œAre they so dissimilar and never more closely linkedâ€ replied the druid as he began to stroll back

This left two halves of the same young coin standing watching the images.

"This is starting to piss me off," the dark figure snarled into the ether. The deadly staff crackled with pent up energy as if to emphasise Necron's anger.
This was Charles Munro's history, and although clone number #1103 had been briefed on the elf's family the background was not extensive.

Perhaps sometime in the near future would be a good time to look into this in more depth.
The trouble with that was the possibility of flagging up Transys Neuronet's interest. Not something the skeletal machine wanted any more than his flesh and blood self.

The Druid turned and an incredibly annoying mirthful grin crossed his face.
"Aye, It is Charle's Monroes story, but its unfinished and as his ken it falls to you too bring final resolution" he paused
Necrons staff positively throbbed with enraged power.

Again the Druid smiled "That and your chapters begun, by resolving Monroes legacy you begin your own, the choice is whether you resist or get on with it!" with that he turned and continued his trek onto another hillock.
Black turned his attention back to the screens rotating in front of him, he saw two places of note, any persons memory stirred filling the gaps.

The first was an underground carpark which filling in the gaps 'Black' guessed was in Seattle, the other was a broken down avenue in Chicago, not far from the Pyramid, he thought.
The architecture provided a pleasant sea breeze 'Nice touch, well done' thought Black.

"Pick a card" smiled the Druid
Angry power flared from the top of Necron's staff
"Don't be foolish" a harder edge came from the Druid
Necron's eyes pouring greenbalefire narrowed, for the first time he got a measure of the druids programming, its scale and it was indeed mighty.
The cards showed pictures of locations within the flesh and blood, Necron growled in frustration "Determined little shit ain't ya" he rumbled.
His reply was that mirthful grin.

"Calm down," Caliburn Black instructed his virtual self.
It seemed that Necron had become more and more angry recenctly and Black was concerned as to why?

In the flesh and blood his emotions were controlled, were supressed until he felt it was appropriated to display them. Was he angry? So angry that the pent up feeling was being released into the matrix?

Necron was really just an extension of himself, an icon representing him. Okay, so Transys had designed the icon to be a ruthless killing machine, not at all unlike his true self, but since the loss of his cranial cyberdeck, and everything that was associated with it, Necron seemed to be becoming his own entity. Yet, that said, the ancient looking machine was still him, and still obeyed his wishes.

Necron cast a sideways glance at the druid before growling, â€œExcuse me, I have work to doâ€¦â€
The druid gave a courteous nod of his head and smiled. â€œIâ€™ll find you when you have more time.â€
Yet another growl emitted from the ancient looking robot, a noise that indicated the machineâ€™s annoyance at the fact but also of his grudging acceptance of the inevitable.

With that the Necron disappeared form the virtual representation of Rafertyâ€™s bar.

The world was black for a moment, in reality a hundredth of a nanosecond. Then a sickly green glow began to permeate the nothingness.
Necron emerged into a nightmare landscape where sharp glass like shards or rock jutted upwards at acute angles into a twilight sky.
The unfriendly land was crisscrossed with narrow pathways, sometimes delving into gorges and other times sweeping up to form narrow bridges over seemingly bottomless chasms. Each pathway was edged with the razor sharp rocks, emphasising the lethal ambiance of the virtual terrain. Veins of energy ran through and beneath the rocks like an alien lava which sometimes erupted through the surface into pools to cast an unhealthy pallor on the surrounding landscape.
All the pathways interconnected with a single ring road of giant black flagstones and then ran from there in straight lines towards the hub, a gigantic obsidian pyramid that looked to have both Egyptian and Mayan influences.
The land within the bounds of the ring-road was flat, but still bore the lava like veins and pools.
The virtual realm did not go on forever and when travelling out from the hub the path would eventually come to a huge obsidian gateway, flanked by two obelisks of black marble.

Through one of these gateways Necron now walked. The gate hummed a deep almost threatening sound as the figure entered, but fell silent after the ancient robot had taken no more than a dozen paces. The guardians at the gate satisfied with the figures authority to be there.
This was Necronâ€™s realm, his virtual kingdom. The place had been designed and built solely for him, it was not a place for others to dwell uninvited.

Necron continued to the pyramid, ignoring the strange looking robots that patrolled the land. They had a beetle like lower body that hovered over the ground. The humanoid upper torso at the front end made them appear as robotic beetle centaurs and they looked as ancient as their master Indeed they were similar in appearance except for their right arm which had been replaced with some sort of disruptor weapon that glowed with a green energy.

Making his way to the arched entrance, Necron passed within, quickly navigating the darkened corridors until he came to a cell like room with a thick door of petrified oak.
Politely he knocked before entering.
Within the room was another skeletal robot. This one smaller than Necron and more hunched. What made the entity stand out from the Dark Lord of this realm was the flesh robe it wore. Supple fresh skin that appeared to have been recently peeled from some hapless victim was draped over the robotâ€™s back like a cloak and still dripped blood upon the floor where it stood.

â€œYes oâ€™ master?â€ the robot hissed in a vile voice.
â€œZuulâ€ Necron named the entity. â€œI have a task for you.â€
The sprite already knew what the Necron desired from it, it was after all itâ€™s masterâ€™s servant.
â€œCome with me to the â€˜World Chamberâ€™. There you will await my summons.â€
Leaving a trail of blood that slowly faded and then disappeared, the robot shambled along behind the stooping form of the Necron Lord.

Within the World Chamber, a tall room at the summit of the pyramid lit with eerie green flamed braziers, Caliburn Blackâ€™s matrix alter ego walked across to a small circular dais in the centre of the room.
The sloping walls faded away to be replaced with a ghost like view of the Oakland Matrix as viewed from the top of a pyramid in the southeast of the city.
Necron reached out a skeletal finger tapping in an LTG reference into a virtual keyboard that had materialised before him.
The first part of the LTG address indicated that it was outside of the California Free State borders, somewhere within the UCAS.
The matrix ghost-image changed to show a very basic view of the electronic North American continent. As more digits were entered, so the matrix image changed again showing the American west coast, then Seattle and eventually stopping at the communications node in the Downtown district.

With a mental click from Black the room shone a bright white, swamping out all other images.
Outside, the top of the four sided pyramid broke apart with a deep rumbling stone grating on stone noise. Once open a beam of bright green energy shot up into the starless heavens.

Fractions of a second later the beam had gone.

Necron stood within the comms node, a part of the Seattle public matrix system, the normally smooth surface blackened and cracked from his landing. He snarled a chuckle, amused at the fragility of the program for this part of the matrix structure.
Opening a window Necron consulted the seeker complex form he had left running. The form pointed him to Slasherâ€™s phone.
The Troll Killers had been asked to take out a hit on the Foundation and now Necron/Black was looking to pay them back for the attack. But first he wanted to know who had put them up to the task. For that he needed to make use of Zuul.
Zuul was a sprite, the matrix version of a spirit. Like an olden day virus he would insinuate himself into a location, hiding beneath layers of disguise subtly and covertly going about his given task.

In the matrix, Necron closed in on the Slasherâ€™s phone icon, crossing the virtual city, noticing the thousands of information highways that crossed the vista, throbbing with data. How much of this could information could be valuable to someone like him. It wasnâ€™t easy intercepting data packets though, not easy at all, and came with a high risk. He didnâ€™t pay much attention to the various iconical representations of the millions of businesses and private nodes as he passed. He even ignored the majority of the icons representing other deckers. He only really cared about the signal.
Then in a quiet part of the Downtown matrix was the small, almost insignificant icon of Slasherâ€™s phone.
The phone was in passive mode, indicating that it wasnâ€™t in use.

Necron pulled his cloak around himself and as he did he became translucent, activating his stealth complex form.
Now was the time to see just how secure this phone was; he tried to access the phoneâ€™s internal system.

The Node of the phone resembled a pulsing transluscent rectangle, as Necron circled around the matrix point, analysing it for weaknesses, a hairline crack that would allow him access.
Like a vampire seeking invitation into the virgins abode.

Then he saw it, a play of light, a momentary window and Necron took it, his form surging through into the inner system.

After three months their patience was rewarded, the patrolling smartframes identified a change, sutle at first then gaping fissures across the archologies host walls.
Since the fall of the SCIRE its RTG had been inpenetrable, enterprising deckers had set a small army of stealth, spoof and penetration frames across the wall, like vultures circling a carcass theyâ€™d waited.
The paydata within the SCIRE was a veritable goldmine, plus the common concensus was that with the military in control they wouldnâ€™t know their arse from their elbow.

The jackhammer programs seemed to be having an effect, part of the perimeter barrier was breaching, pathways were opening into nodes, entry.
2XS was awakened by the signal sent by his smartframe, as he logged in he instructed the coffee machine to get the â€˜Joâ€™ on, his virtua form blurring as he tranversed the Seattle grid in seconds.

Arriving on the code tower of a neighbouring LTG to the SCIRE, 2XS swept his virtua trenchcoat back as he stepped onto the rooftop, his partners in crime allowed their personas to grin, truly the Cheshire Cats.
â€˜Zoomâ€™ resembled a metallic fluid man, with different bands of colour flowing through his limbs, â€˜Bearâ€™ their self styled combat decker, his personal a large troll sized armoured suit, carrying copious outrageous weapons. A foxy leather clad cat burglaress and a luminescent serpent.

Zoom shook 2XSâ€™s hand â€œThis is the big one, buddyâ€
â€œSure isâ€ he replied, â€œWe gotta remember this is the grand daddy of systems, was before all this, wonâ€™t be any different now!â€
â€œYou getting boring in your old ageâ€ Nim chided him
â€œJust donâ€™t want people getting friedâ€ replied 2XS
â€œSorry man, forgot you got zapped a few months backâ€ said the serpent
2XS had not long recovered from major neurological damage, inflicted on him by Shotozuma deckers, being comatosed for a fortnight had brought a sense of prudence to a once rash decker.
â€œBear, got the ordinanceâ€ asked 2XS
The combat decker nodded
â€œNim, defensive softcodesâ€ he checked
â€œBy the bucketloadsâ€ she replied
â€œTime to go then, before the vultures clean the carcassâ€ and with that the hacker crew descended across the intervening grid towards the code breaches in the SCIRE.

The agent cautiously made its way through the wreckage.
The Node was trashed, the damage was hardcode deep into its core, part of the problem had been its prime code had been fundamentally
altered, altered by something with hideous processing power and scale.
The agent was formed, born with stealth as its primary function, despite this both it and its creator felt an intense nervousness, that for all
its capability it wouldnâ€™t be enough.

Icons floated, shattered, rended, some a mere remnant of their former selves, each an indication of the trauma often lethal that had been inflicted
upon their owners meat bodies or brains. The agent electronically shivered as the severed icon head, that of a once glowing snake drifted by.
Subtlety it ran a scan, sweeping across the node, looking for a familiar signature.
It suddenly shot backwards, stealthly merging with the remains of a once wonderfully sculpted tree.
Ominous clear crystal spheres slid up through the ground, horrifically parting the autumnal ground, destroying the leaves, displacing them, eroding their coding.
Something about those spheres filled the agents master with absolute fear, almost uncontrollable.

The agent made a decision, there was no sign of 2XS, even among the virtual dead or destroyed.
These entities or knowbots were on a scale it had never seen before, it knew that escape was possible but would lead them to its master.
Lacking any significant offensive programs, it mustered what it had and launched firing everything.
Its attack delivered little in the way of meaningful damage, the agents form was mercilessly dismembered, taken apart piece by piece, destroying it utterly,
which fortunately also destroyed any datatrails back home.

Agent Mark Kemp rerouted his auxiliary shields, the â€˜Fedwatchâ€™ mainframe boosting power into his deck shoring up his defences and repair soft codes.
Upon his bed the medics monitored his readings, his ECG flashing warnings, his like his fellow combat deckers, cranial activity was lit up like Christmas. The medical technicians exchanged worried glances.

He pulled himself from the wreckage of the Matrix plaza and stared in disbelief as the quarter mile wide hole that had been Ameribanks Tacoma Node descended down beyond his sensory range, a chasm into the abyss.
His icon blurred as his evasion programs initiated, as a Multiplier Beam erupted from the chasm.
A crystal sphere rocketed up, several deckers blasted away from it as it overcame them in cybercombat, a combined force of UCAS Army, the Feds, Lonestar, Mitsuhama and Microdeck had engaged the enemy.
The beam disrupted several icons, its code similar to a â€˜Blackhammerâ€™ utility but with seriously unpleasant viral content. He was still moving as the beam swept across the remnants of the node, in turn her returned fire with his own blaster utility, the code uselessly reflecting off its crystalline shell.

The amassed force of Deckers regrouped and attacked once again, hopefully they wouldnâ€™t have to take the scrorched earth route theyâ€™d had to do with the Fargo Industrial Plastics node.
The casualties suffered when the Orbs had emerged within the plants Node had become prohibitive, in the end theyâ€™d dropped a viral bomb and destroyed the whole Node taking the spheres with it.
The damage the the grid and infrastructure was ranging into tens of millions of Nuyen.

Another pass and the Crystal Orb had send a further twenty deckers offline, some now cerebrally offline.
â€˜Kempâ€™ turned to face the orb as it rose from the crater, pixellation and corrupted code crackling around it.
Kemp initiated his shutdown protocols, garbled orders were streaming into their icons to retreat the order was being given to burn the node, a blaster beam ripped into an offensive smartframe to his left, the frame resembling a cuboid tank.
Ordinarily Frames or IC of that level could take any amount of punishment, this one imploded its core destroyed and dragging its icon and surface programming into itself.

Kemp wondered whether heâ€™d make it out, it wasnâ€™t as simple as just jacking out, both the Node and SAN were full of viral code, which slowed any IO operations down, plus there was the risk of some rogue IC coding infecting the persona as it exited.
Rather like a diver having dived too deep then encountering a shark, he had to soft exit, milliseconds passed as his deck relays slowly closed down purging themselves of infection.
All the while the diver waited at a safe point to prevent the bends the shark circled up toward him.
The orb rotated releasing pulses of hostile IC, picking off the deckers as they slowly withdrew.

A beam of emerald green energy struck the orb, blowing it backwards, another slammed into it.
A discolouration spread across its surface, the orb spun, and this time much quicker and released a barrage of attack utilities.
The stranded combat deckers watched as a similiarly emerald crystalline figure flew into the Node, further beams lancing out, striking the orb.
The orbs responses were now more urgent, its attacks flaring around significant shielding on the figures part.
They watched as the two crystal forms exchanged fire, until an aperture opened on the surface of the Crystal orb, a green beam flew into the opening and the orb splintered into a million crystalline fragments.

Kemp looked up at the figure his sensors compromised by his soft exit, but he was sure it wasnâ€™t a decker, then he opened his eyes.